Authors: James Oswald
22
Saturday should have been his day off. Not that he'd made any plans, but whatever he'd intended doing, sitting in his office at the police station at half past eight in the morning hadn't been high on the list of options. Not after less than four hours sleep. McLean clicked through the digital photographs from the crime scene on his computer. He'd need to get them printed out; it was impossible to work off the tiny screen. Selecting the whole batch, he sent them to the shared colour printer down the corridor, hoping it would have enough paper and toner in it for a change.
The flat had been thankfully empty when he'd let himself in, having walked the mile and a half back from Buchan Stewart's apartment. It wasn't that he didn't like company, but he preferred to lose himself in a crowd. One to one, without the crutch of his professional persona, was just too fraught with possibilities and difficulties to be ever truly enjoyable. Even if he hadn't just come back from a violent crime scene, he preferred his own company. Just him and his ghosts.
'Ah, Tony. I was hoping to catch you in this morning.'
Startled, McLean looked up to see Chief Superintendent McIntyre advancing down the corridor towards him. Her uniform didn't flatter her much, and he wondered idly if she'd put on weight.
'Ma'am?'
'You took on the Stewart case last night. Thank you.' She fell in beside him as they carried on walking.
'I did wonder why there was no-one else to take it.'
'Ah. Yes. Well, Chief Inspector Duguid did want the case, but as soon as I heard about it, I had to insist he pass it on to someone else.'
'Why?'
'Buchan Stewart is... was his uncle.'
'Ah.'
'So really you should be flattered that he chose you to conduct the investigation. I know the two of you don't see eye to eye.'
'That's the polite way of putting it, ma'am.'
'Well, I have to be tactful in my line of work. And I have to make sure my senior officers can work together. Do a good job on this, Tony, and whatever Dagwood's got against you, I'm sure he'll let it slide.'
It was the first time he'd ever heard McIntyre use the Chief Inspector's nickname. He smiled at her attempt to be conspiratorial with him, but she'd got the nature of their animosity all wrong. He didn't much like Duguid because the Chief Inspector was a sloppy investigator. Duguid didn't like him because he knew it.
'So what have you got so far?' McIntyre asked.
'It's early days, really. But I'm leaning towards jealousy as motivation. Nothing obvious had been stolen, so it wasn't burglary. And Stewart was naked, which suggests he may have been expecting sex. He was homosexual, and could have recently found a new partner. I'd finger him as our prime suspect. If I had to make a guess, I'd say a younger man, maybe considerably younger.'
'Any witnesses? CCTV?'
'No-one in the tenement saw anything. I've got DC MacBride going over the tapes from last night, but it's a bit of a camera blackspot. We'll hopefully narrow things down a bit once the pathologist has given us a more accurate time of death.'
'What about the man who phoned it in?'
'Timothy Garner. Lived next door. He was Stewart's partner for years, business and, um, personal.'
'Could he have done it?'
'I don't think so. It just didn't feel like that kind of case. He's meant to be coming in later this morning to make a statement anyway, but I think I might head over there and interview him at home. He'll be more at ease there.'
'Good idea. It'll help to keep things low profile too. I suspect DCI Duguid would appreciate that.' McIntyre gave him a conspiratorial wink. 'See Tony, you can do diplomacy if you try hard enough.'
*
The blood smear on the stairwell wall looked paler and less ominous in the daylight flooding from the glass canopy overhead. A constable stood on guard outside Buchan Stewart's flat. He looked bored to tears, but snapped to attention when he saw the inspector coming up the stairs. Constable Kydd trailed behind, once more his driver for the day.
'Anyone coming or going, Don?' McLean asked.
'Not a peep, sir.'
'Good.' He knocked gently on the door to Garner's apartment. 'Mr Garner? It's Inspector McLean.'
No answer. He knocked a little harder.
'Mr Garner?' McLean turned back to the constable on guard duty. 'He didn't pop out did he?'
'No sir. I've been here since seven and no-one's moved since then. Phil... Constable Patterson was on before me. Said the place was quiet as the grave.'
McLean knocked once more, then tried the door handle. It clicked open onto a darkened entrance hall.
'Mr Garner?' A shiver ran down his spine. What if the old man had died of a heart attack? He turned back to Constable Kydd. 'Come with me,' he said and stepped inside.
The apartment was silent save for the tick, tick, ticking of an old grandfather clock in the hallway. As McLean went to the living room where they had interviewed Garner earlier in the morning, Constable Kydd headed down a narrow corridor that he assumed lead to the kitchen. The old man was not in the seat where they'd left him, neither was he in his study, which McLean found through the next door off the hallway. The room was neat and tidy, the desk empty save for a green glass shaded library lamp, which was switched on and pointed downwards to illuminate a single sheet of paper.
He crossed the room, his mind racing. Bending down, he could read the words written on the paper in neat pen.
I have killed my soul mate, my lover, my friend. I did not mean to but fate has made it so. I could no longer live with him, but now I find I cannot live without him. To whomsoever finds this note...
A loud gasp echoed through the silent apartment. McLean hurried out of the study.
'Constable?'
'Sir. In here.'
He rushed across the hallway and down the narrow corridor, but he knew what was coming. Constable Kydd stood in the doorway to the bathroom, her face a pale white, her eyes staring. He gently moved her out of the way and stepped past.
Timothy Garner had taken his bath. And then he'd taken a razor to his wrists.
~~~~
23
'That was quick, Tony. You might even have beaten Duguid's record.' DCS McIntyre perched herself on the edge of the desk; there was nowhere else in the room to sit other than the chair McLean was already occupying. She looked pleased for once; there was nothing like a quick result for boosting the clean-up statistics, after all. Just a pity he couldn't share her enthusiasm.
'I don't think he did it, ma'am.'
'Didn't he leave a confession?'
'Yes, he left a note.' McLean picked up the A4 print of the digital photograph which was all he had of Timothy Garner's last words, handing it to McIntyre. SOC had taken the original away to 'do tests.' He could have told them not to bother; they would show it had been written by Garner, using his normal handwriting. The paper would yield no fingerprints other than those of the dead man, but analysis of the liquid that had splashed the last paragraph might well reveal it to have been his tears.
' "I have killed my soul mate, my lover, my friend." What part of that isn't a confession? You already said they'd rowed because Garner thought Stewart was getting a bit on the side. It was a brutal attack, sure. But crimes of passion often are. And then, when he realised what he'd done, he couldn't live with it.'
'I don't know. It doesn't feel right. And his words are so flowery. He could just be blaming himself for not being there with Stewart when it happened.'
'Come on. He had the motive, he had the weapon.'
'Did he? Forensics couldn't match his cut-throat to the knife that killed Stewart. They just said it was razor sharp.'
'Drop it, Tony. OK? You've been through the CCTV tapes for the time of the murder. No one enters or leaves that building half an hour either side of the time of death. There were no witnesses to the murder and the person most likely to have committed it has confessed. Don't go raking over the coals when you don't need to.'
McLean slumped back in his uncomfortable chair and looked up at his boss. She was right, of course. Timothy Garner was the most obvious choice of suspect.
'What about the fingerprints? They couldn't match all of them to Garner.'
'That's because they were so smeared they couldn't match them to anyone. And they found traces of Stewart's blood in Garner's basin where he washed his hands. His clothes were spattered in it too. They'd probably have found it in his bath if he hadn't filled it with his own.' McIntyre dropped the copy of the suicide note back onto McLean's desk, followed by the slim brown folder she had brought in with her; the report on the murder of Buchan Stewart. 'Face it, Tony. Your report as good as says Garner killed Stewart and then committed suicide, and that's what's going to the PF. Case closed.'
'Is this being hushed up so Duguid doesn't have to explain to the world about his gay uncle?' McLean knew as soon as the words were out that he shouldn't have said them. McIntyre stiffened, then stood up from the desk, straightening her uniform.
'I'll pretend I didn't hear that, detective inspector. The same way as I'm ignoring the fact that you left Garner at home on his own when by all rights he should have been down in the cells, or at the very least with a FLO to keep him company. Now sign off that report and get out of here. Isn't there a funeral you're meant to be attending?' She turned and left.
McLean sighed, pulling the slim folder towards him. He could feel his ears burning slightly at the rebuke and knew that he had lost the superintendent's goodwill, at least for the next few days. But he couldn't help thinking there was much more to the death of Buchan Stewart. Nor could he stop blaming himself for Timothy Garner's suicide. He should have insisted someone stay with the old man overnight. Hell, he should have taken the man into custody as a suspect. Exactly why hadn't he done that?
Glancing out the window, the pale blue morning sky cast the tenements behind the station into deep shade. He stifled a yawn, stretching until the muscles and joints in his back started to protest. He was meant to have the weekend off, but instead it had been long and for the most part dull as he waited for the results of Buchan Stewart's post mortem, the forensic and fingerprint reports. Everything pointed to Garner being the culprit, and yet McLean couldn't accept it. Something in the pit of his stomach squirmed as he remembered sitting with the old man, touching his hand to wake him from his trance, listening to his story. He had been eighty years old, frail. How would he have had the strength to kill? And to mutilate a man so.
In the end, it didn't matter. Chief Superintendent McIntyre had told him to close the case. She might have been trying to protect Duguid, or pressure might have been applied from higher up the food chain. It didn't matter. Unless he could show irrefutable evidence of a third party being involved in the crime, then as far as everyone else was concerned it was solved. A big plus point on the annual statistics and a cheap investigation to boot. Everyone happy. Except poor old Buchan Stewart, lying on a cold slab with his manhood in a plastic bag beside him. Except Timothy Garner, pale and drained of blood like a stuck pig.
Except him.
Pushing aside the thought, he opened up the folder, glancing up at the clock on the wall. Just gone nine; an hour until the car came to collect him. He clicked on his computer and began to type. If McIntyre wanted a whitewash, he wasn't going to waste a lot of time on it.
*
He is confused, hungry, anxious. Pain fills his head, making it hard to concentrate, hard to remember who he is. His hands are raw, rubbed almost to the bone with washing, and yet still he feels dirty. Nothing gets him clean anymore.
There was a place he used to go every day. They had water there, and food. Images tumble through his mind, and one sticks. Hands rubbed together with soap, under a tap running warm water. The rhythmic ritual of fingers sliding between each other, palms gliding together, thumbs massaging. He knows this place and it is near. He must go there. He can be clean there.
The streets are canyons, tall buildings rising high on either side, blocking out the light but letting the heat build like an oven. Cars rumble past, their tyres thrumming on the cobbles. They ignore him and he ignores them in return. He has a destination now, and once he is there, everything will be all right. He just needs to wash his hands.
Steps lead up from the street. They are like mountains to his exhausted, pain-wracked legs. What has he been doing to feel this way? Why can't he remember where he has been? Why can't he remember who he is?
The door is made of glass, and it slides away from his approach as if he is too terrible to be faced. The room beyond is light and airy, cooler than the foetid heat of outdoors. He steps uncertainly from stone to polished floor, glances around, trying to remember where those taps are, that soap. He looks down at his hands, suddenly frightened by them, by what they can do. He shoves them in his pockets and the right one feels something hard, smooth; grasps it instinctively.
Someone is talking to him, an insistent voice that he cannot understand. He looks around, the room suddenly too bright, the light like daggers in his eyes. A woman sits behind a desk, her face white, eyes wide. He thinks he should know her. Behind her, men in pale suits stand like puppets with their strings cut. He thinks he should know them too. He takes his hand out of his pocket, meaning to wave to them, show them his stained hands, to reassure them that all he wants to do is wash. But the smooth, hard object comes too, brings with it a memory.
And he knows what it is he must do.
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